Welcome! This blog follows the building, cultivating, and harvesting of the Lakewood Elementary schoolyard garden in St. Petersburg, Florida. Since January 2009, the Edible Peace Patch Project has been developing innovative community-oriented food system and nutrition educational programs in south St. Petersburg, Florida. Lakewood Elementary is the 1st school to participate in our Garden Education Program!

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Monday, February 23, 2009

A Beautiful Day to Start the Week!

Today was not only beautiful but also very eventful! Everything looks fabulous, more potatoes sprouted over the weekend, the Three Sisters are flourishing, we found some tiny eggplant sprouts and the sunflowers are getting HUGE! The marigolds are hanging in there, and it looks like some sunflowers and squash are being munched on but we'll just keep a close eye on them. Every shift today got a lot of work done. In the morning, Dylan, Erica, Jess, Kaylie and Teresa had two classes. They watered the beds with the 5th graders and weeded with the 2nd grade EBD class. The two water melon beds were sprinkled with a mixture 1:1:1 of sand, soil, and horse manure, sort of an experiment to see if the seedlings aren't too fragile. Since the pumpkins, gourds, and brussel sprouts were all planted in mounds, it made it difficult for water to seep in. The morning shift smoothed them out so that the water could go right to the roots where it was needed instead of running off to the sides.During the 11-1 shift, Kaylie, Alex and Erica fixed the messy piles of soil, horse manure, and sand and picked up some trash around the picnic tables. We had Mrs Wester's 2nd grade class come out and take some data/observations on certain beds. They were extremely attentive and well behaved and did a great job measuring the seedlings and beds and taking the temperature of the air and soil. Then they helped us transplant healthy broccoli seedlings into the places where some had died (fortunately it was only a few). The kids were super gentle with the plants and made an obvious effort to walk delicately around the garden. Then they shared the task of watering our newly transplanted broccoli plants. We had a great time with them!In the afternoon Lauren, Kathy, and Alex worked on getting the kinks out of the hose and watered a little more. The second grade class (Mrs Pavlowski's I believe) didn't come out for some reason but instead we weeded around the pumpkins and gourds with three 5th graders who came out during P.E. The one on one time was wonderful, we got to really know our kids and were able to answer their specific questions. My 5th grader Jamie told me he'd rather be out in the garden than at P.E.! All of them seemed to love the task of weeding and didn't mind getting a little dirty. The three expressed a lot of interest and excitement in seeing some of their favorite vegetables in their immature stages. Near the end of the day we discovered on the bare branches of the bigger myrtle tree a definite, healthy sprout! It was a glorious beginning to a new week!

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About The Edible Peace Patch

is one of two schoolyard gardens run by The Edible Peace Patch Project in St. Petersburg, Florida. This project was developed to set a standard for experiential education as well as provide valuable mentoring opportunities for undergraduate students in St. Petersburg, and to provide academic support and collaborative experiential learning to students in south Pinellas County.